Military veteran says she was attacked, had dog stolen

Ashley McCall of Concord was attacked and her dog Jax was stolen Thursday night. Now dog lovers are mobilizing to try to help find the missing dog and return him home by Christmas. (Facebook)

A Concord military veteran says she was assaulted and her beloved dog stolen Thursday afternoon.

Now dog lovers across New Hampshire and beyond are trying to help find Jax, who belongs to Ashley McCall and George Frank Glass. The story of what happened to McCall and her dog has been spreading across social media this weekend.

In a Facebook post on Thursday, McCall said a man approached her outside her apartment and started asking her about the dog right after she put Jax in her car.

“Asked if he could see him and I said I really need to be going,” she wrote. “Asked if I was sure and opens my car door. As I went to shut it he threw me to the ground and took off with Jax.”

Concord police said they are investigating a stolen dog incident but could not provide more details about it on Saturday.

But an alert business owner got a good look at the apparent dognappers and that might help police solve the crime more quickly.

Fred Keach is the owner of D. Mcleod, Inc., Florist on South State Street, next door to where McCall lives. He used to be a police officer in Portland, Maine, and when he noticed a silver Ford Focus parked in his shop’s parking lot most of the day on Thursday, he became suspicious.

An employee told him the car was there when they first arrived at 7:45 a.m., Keach said.

Over the course of the day, he noticed that the car was moved around a few times, he said.

Jax the dog was stolen in Concord Thursday and his owners are “praying for a Christmas miracle.” (Facebook)

“But at all times, it was oriented towards this apartment building next to our building,” he said. “It was clear they were looking for someone or waiting for someone.”

Eventually, Keach went out to confront the driver. There were two men in the car that he estimated were in their 50s. He asked what they were up to and one man told him they were “just waiting for someone.”

“Which seemed very odd to me, that you’d wait all day,” Keach said. “Why wouldn’t you pick up your cellphone and call that person? That didn’t really strike me as believable.”

So Keach took down the license plate and called police. As he was telling his story to a police officer, Ashley McCall came over, crying, he said.

“She said, ‘I just got assaulted and they stole my dog.’ ”

“This is all connected,” Keach told the Concord officer.

He said McCall described the dognapper’s car: a silver Ford Focus; she also saw the license plate, which matched the registration number he had written down. And her description of the man who took Jax matched that of one of the men he confronted, he said.

“It shouldn’t be that difficult to track down,” Keach said.

Strangers and friends alike have been sharing what happened on social media, and expressing concern for McCall’s welfare. “My knee is hurt, but my heart is broken,” she replied.

Her husband posted on Saturday that the couple is “praying for a Christmas Miracle.”

“We haven’t slept in 2 days,” Glass wrote.

Glass said there’s a reward for Jax’s return. His wife is a military veteran and Jax is her service dog, who helps her with anxiety, he said.

“We miss him very much,” he wrote, adding that Jax “is probably confused and scared.”

Keach said he hopes McCall gets her dog back, and soon. “She was pretty shaken up,” he said.

But his law enforcement instincts make him believe that police will discover some connection that makes the incident personal. “You don’t read about too many random dogs being dognapped,” he said.